Why is it that it is always our players that are targeted by the Big two in Spain? You rarely hear of a Liverpool player randomly wanted by the Presidents elect of Real Madrid or Barcelona. The Ronaldo To Madrid story broke because Man U would not meet the new wage demands so the agent alerted Real. It is obvious from his body language he is off in the summer and Man U sorted a one year deal out so they could let Ferguson save face. Man U are said to be lining up Ribery as his replacement, as JonJon said it would be better if he went to the Spanish giants then their thirst for a big name each can be satisfied and leave our top guns alone.

Do they pick on us because we have the best players for them and it suits their style of football? In the past most of the players that have left Arsenal to play on foreign shores have not really reached the heights that they did with us. Brady, Van Bronkhurst, Silviniho perhaps are the ones that are exceptions to the rule and recently Henry has recaptured some of his old form. Until we win the European Cup we are seen as easy pickings.

If we win the European Cup our profile as a big club is raised to the top. we are no longer that feeder club that quality players use as a stepping stone. We need to be up their with Madrid, Milan, Barcelona and even Man U when a player looks around for a new club he needs to know he would be taking a backwards step or at worst a sideways one. A small concern though is Mr Wenger obe, will he feel he has achieved all he can at arsenal or can he keep the hunger and desire going to make our club the biggest and best in the world?.

Rico brought up a point while talking about players contracts from yesterdays post “I think Arsene will sign a contract extension in the summer” of course we all hope that he does, but he normally lets his contract go down to the last knockings. I would prefer him to keep signing an extension every year or so because to me that would set a example for the players to do the same. How can you expect players like Flamini not to not run their contracts down if the manager allows his to. Lead by example please Mr Wenger obe…

Rico has given us her views on tonight’s game.

Groguet v’s Gunnersaurus – Little Yellow against the Mighty Dinosaur…

Tonight sees a rematch of the 2006 Champions League Semi final, and my question is will the outcome be the same?..

Villarreal a few short weeks later went on to shock us all, they stole away one of our prize possessions for free. Arsene made him feel unwanted and he felt let down when he was substituted in the final in Paris in front of his whole family. How I have missed those little legs with ’10 to 2’ feet at the end of them, racing down the left, unleashing a fierce shot on goal, the inch perfect pass to Freddie or Thierry and another goal for us to celebrate… Oh happy days they were.

But life has moved on, he now plays for tonight’s challengers, three years older and hopefully three years slower, and I really can’t see him getting the better of Sagna – so I am not going to worry about Sir Bobby tonight.

The ground itself is a little like how ours used to be, their stadium only holds 25,000 fans, and it seems to attract some dreadful defenders to it, which brings me on to another old boy of ours, Cygan. He will be playing against his old club who, unlike with Bobby, I would have given him away, and thrown Eboue into the deal. With Theo he will have his hands full and will have to try very very hard not to make himself look too silly with his lack of pace – and that is not me being cruel, its real, Cygan was poor when he was with us, he must be worse now..

The only other player I know about is Senna – 33 years old and some still rave about him. For me Paddy was always better than him, and when he got older and played against our midfield which included Cesc, we all know what happened, so I am not too concerned about him either. If Song and Cesc play in the centre of the midfield, he will get little joy.

I am sure there is truly no reason to fear our opposition – respect, yes, but not fear.

Tonight is about going to Spain, getting two away goals, and all but killing the tie off. The defence needs to be sharp and on the ball. Dont give them an inch, and I dont think they will.If we defend as well as we have done, we will come away with a clean sheet.

Ave – the reason that RM are not ever after the Dippers player’s is because they are all C**P, the only one who is half decent is Stevie Me Me Me – and they wouldnt want him as they wouldnt be able to understand him 😉

rasp, I have a feeling you may be right about the one up front and Theo on the right, but I really hope he goes there with the intention to get a couple of goals – we could all but kill the tie off tonight if we dod what we do best –

Hi rico – I look a bit closer to ‘normal’ this morning thanks – never a pretty sight 🙂 Like you, I always get very twitchy leading up to an important game. I am likely to be posting increasingly off-the-wall comments as the day goes on…. I am torn between predicting 1 nil (I’d really go for 2 nil but others have got there before me!) but I can see a bit of a goalfest and something like 4:2 if we score first and they come at us.

You wouldnt believe ave, the better one finishes at 5pm tonight so dinner early, chickens have been warned that they need to be up in their nesting bay by 7.30 at the latest, and pigs/hamster will all be fed and watered ready for a 90 minutes of peace. Well, I am not sure that I will be peaceful, I am hoping to be cheering many many goals 🙂

So Alan Hansen has a view on our game tonight then, he thinks the game will be won/lost in the midfield, in that he means the battle between Cesc and Senna –

Well strike a light Hansen, how long did it take you to work that out, and secondly how the heck do you think you have a right to an opinion on our club, you dont watch them, you dont show them on MOTD, so zip your choppers and keep your comments to thd dippers, and get your tissues out because Chelsea are going to knock them out again…

ave – I dont watch it anymore, I really cant stand either of them, they are bad enough being so bias against us, but they are ex dippers, and they make me cringe!

I hope you really are kidding about your wardrobe 😉

Sky show most of the games which I record, unless its been live on Setanta in which case i record that – Footie First does a whole game replay just after 8pm, often we are there to, plenty of ways to avoid Mr Chips and his two dippy side kicks 😉

They was saying this morning that the small pitch will suit villareal, probably the same people who were critisizing us training on 5 a side pitches playing one touch football. when they were saying that’s why we don’t shoot..

Hello,
for those with time on their hands,try this.I bet rasputin will know all 5.

1. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires. The second is full of assassins with loaded guns. The third is full of lions that haven’t eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?

2. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?

3. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?

4. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday?

5. This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!

I feel unusually confident, I certainly didn’t feel this way the last time we played them, which I went to, and I would have gone to this one but for Mrs London falling down the stairs and breaking her leg (so inconsiderate)

The key battle tonight will be in the midfield. I know Man City were crap but I thought Denilson and Song were shining more than usual, I put it down to the return of Fabregas, he makes their job easier; they break the play up and give it to our captain. So long as the two guard dogs carry on with the same level of concentration I cannot see how this one can go astray. I mean Cygan, a slower Pires and 33 year old DM in Senna; there just isn’t anything to be frightened of.

Even Adebayor, if you take the most cynical view possible that he will be wanting to leave at the end of the season then there is no better advert for himself than a good performance in the CL.

My only reservation is that I have only gone for a 2-1 victory perhaps I should increase that because if the give Walcott space, our butchers dog will tear them apart.

We are all freelance, it’s quite a clever idea really, it breaks it all up and keeps it interesting. I’m not doing this evenings report, I’m having a rest but I am looking forward to reading someone else’s tomorrow.

Yea roadsters – very poor, a shadow of the team at the weekend but then they’re up against much better opposition. Ade has been continually out of position, offside and given away too many fouls. We can only make one more sub now so that can’t be early and tactical because we could get another injury. The only good thing is that if they love so much playing on this compact ground, they won’t enjoy the Emirates. One nil isn’t the end of the world but we mustn’t go 2 behind. I blame Raddy….

phew, what a weird one.
we were hopeless in the first half and adebayor was of no use for almost an hour but scored an incredible goal.
i won’t lie; i was praying for wenger to take ade off before he scored too, but he got the goal that gives us the advantage now.
oh well 😀

Just kidding ave…. I feel the same way about Fabianski v Almunia as I do Gibbs in relation to Cliche – there’s not a lot to choose between them! We can’t afford any more injuries to our CB’s though because Sylvestre cannot be relied on to stay injury free once he returns. Gallas to be back for the CL final??????

Well having had time to digest the game,the key to the rest of our season will now lie on our injury situation.I will be unbiased for once about the players I rate and those I do not.

Cesc understandably looked tired with only his second game in 4 months,and even Ade who was non existent for most of the game,played better after the goal.Let’s face it,Villarreal did their homework on us and we were very fortunate not to be 2-0 down at half time.Leaving out the usual suspects,I was particularly disappointed with Nasri,who hardly featured,and both full backs are still woeful at crossing the ball.As I said last night Toure was my man of the match,and I feel cofident about the home leg.Games are now coming thick and fast,and team selection will be absolutely critical for each game as it comes.Our cover for Gallas is not great,though fabianski will be good cover for Almunia.I think,Clichy and Cesc maybe rested for the Wigan game and Bedtner and Gibbs will start with Arshavin in the hole.

hello again – so i got my prediction wrong, we didn’t win, and Senna was ok 😉 But a 1-1 finishing scoreline was not so bad really – we have the away goal, and maybe Villarreal missed their opportunity last night.

still feel quite confident we will go through, at home things should be a little different and we will know what to expect..

Imagine how you would feen being a Manure fan this morning, they were lucky to draw according to reports and they face a huge task away at Porto.. Manure were dreadful again, are they doing what we did last year – I hop not in the case of the EPL, but in the CL, I really hope so 😛

kelsey – I agree about Ade, one flash of luck/brilliance ?? otherwise he was always in the wrong position. I thought Theo had a good game, but his final ball let him down, and Clichy/Bac’s crossing at time was woeful.

The defence pairing now has to be Kolo and Djourou, the latter did well when he came on and Fabianski will be Mr Reliable i hope 😉

rico,
I just wrote this on another channel,can’t change it,as that is how I feel.

If you want to critise the performance,we weren’t allowed to settle from the off,a quick tempo on a slippery pitch and i think everyone would agree that we were lucky not to be 2-0 down at half time.

there may be more,but Senna,Bentley and giovanni have now all scored from a similar position this season,because they weren’t marked .I disagree about Nasri,I thought he was pants,and not for the first time didn’t perform in an away game.I also disagree about Clichy,he again got caught out of position near the end,which could have led to a goal.Toure was my man of the match,and considering he has only played once before in 4 months cesc was OK but may have been sent off with another referee.I am sure everyone will talk about Adebayor today,was it brillant or a fluke.Love him or hate him,we are now in the driving seat for the second leg,but with Gallas out will Djorou or Silvestre rise to the occasion,with games coming thick and fast.I expect Bedntner,arshavin and gibbs may feature against Wigan,the momentum is there but the rest of the season could well be decided on who is fit.

I just think it was a typical away performance in the CL kelsey, I also dont think any of our players had a outstanding game – cesc had missiles thrown at him, and yes he could have been sent off, but thankfully the ref didnt fall for the tactics of the opposition. Villarrea were trying to get him sent off, but they failed..

I still think we made Senna look good kelsey, had a Paddy style of player been marking him, he would not have had all the space our midfield gave him.

And as you say we are in the driving seat now, and if we dont go through we will have only ourselves to blame. Hopefully a couple of their players will get injured this weekend 😉